How Did That Street Get THAT Name?

Toney Penna

            Florida has always been a magnet for golfers. The mild year-round weather coupled with beautifully designed courses has been bringing them in for decades. The Breakers Hotel claims to have built the first eighteen hole golf course in Florida. According to Golf.com, the Breakers links opened in 1896.

            Quite a bit north of the Breakers, there’s a little road in Jupiter named “Toney Penna.” Not everyone knows who Toney Penna was or how he ended up with a street in Jupiter named after him. I’ve been told bits and pieces of the Toney Penna story by my parents, but this month, I decided to learn more.

Toney Penna, who became a well-known golfer beginning with his 1937 win of the Pennsylvania Open Championship,  moved to Delray Beach in 1946. The Pennas moved right next door to my Aunt Eleanor’s house along the Intracoastal Waterway, a few blocks from my grandparents’ house on N.E. 7^th Avenue. Penna’s son, Jerry, was a year or so younger than my father. I’ve been told that Jerry, Dad and my Uncle Warren ended up getting into mischief together.  There’s a hush-hush tale about an abandoned building, the three boys and police… but that’s a story for another time.

            Penna used to take a small duffel bag filled to the brim with golf balls to a field to practice his drives. After Penna dumped out the golf balls, Dad and Warren would take the empty bag far down the field and chase after balls, gradually filling the bag back up. I’d heard that Dad caddied for him once upon a time, too.

As a local celebrity, Penna lived peacefully along the water in Delray, but it seems he had some famous friends. He played golf often with Perry Como who had a house along the Jupiter Inlet. Back in Delray Beach, Penna’s visitors caused quite the sensation.  According to Dad, Hollywood luminaries showed up at Penna’s house from time to time--Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis among them. Wouldn’t you have loved to sit in on that party?

            So how did a street in Jupiter, forty-five minutes away from Delray, end up named Toney Penna? Penna worked as a representative for MacGregor Golf Company designing clubs until 1967. It was the early 1970s when he went out on his own, opening a little facility where he designed and manufactured golf clubs. The building is still there, located on the south side of Toney Penna Drive, just east of Military Trail, but it’s been renovated and its now impossible to tell that once upon a time golfing royalty worked there.

If you’d like to get your hands on a Toney Penna club, be prepared to pay. The MacGregor Toney Penna Clubs are extremely rare collectibles. A collector’s guide on E-bay says, “An all original, excellent condition set of WWs (white woods) should be worth $1000 or more.” And as for irons, the Penna VIP irons (1963-1967) are considered one of those items so rare, it’s hard to set a value.

I’m sure that when Dad and Warren were cutting through Aunt Eleanor’s hedge to get Jerry for yet another adventure, Dad had no idea that Jerry’s dad, and later Jerry, would make golf clubs so well designed that devoted golfers still search for and collect them.

Accomplishments worthy of having a street named after him, I think.

This article first appeared in my column with Seabreeze Publications, Inc., "The Florida You Don't Know."

In Search of a Ghost Story

            It’s October. That means it’s time for ghosts and goblins and spooky stories told by flickering candlelight. I went searching the northern part of the County for one.

In the days before superhighways and turnpikes, when Palm Beach County residents wanted to head north, they used U.S. Highway One.

From our North Palm Beach home in the 1960s, there wasn’t much to see. There was an occasional business here or there. Through Juno Beach, gently rolling sand dunes covered with native Florida plants appeared on either side of the road, but that was about all there was.

Until we approached Jupiter.

At the intersection of U.S. Highway One and Indiantown Road there were a few businesses, but the most exciting sight was still farther north. As we approached the bridge that crossed over the Intracoastal by the Jupiter Inlet, we could see the lighthouse rising to our right. Sitting proudly on a rare hill, it towered over the surroundings. 

It still does. 
On a recent very hot and humid weekend, I drove over to the lighthouse to do something I never did before. I was determined to climb to the top.  I was also hoping I could pick up a good ghost story or two.  After all, the lighthouse started flashing out its beacon in 1860. Plenty of time for a ghost to take up residence. Luckily for me, the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and Museum is operated by the Loxahatchee River Historical Society, whose volunteers and staff members brave the hot weather to lead tours through the grounds and yes, up to the top of the lighthouse.  

            The tour took us past the Tindall House, acknowledged as the oldest home in the area, which was moved to the grounds from its original location near Center Street. It also took us past the Pennock Bell which rang out in the 1800 and 1900s at Pennock Plantation where pineapples were plentiful.  To the north is an active Coast Guard Station because this is still a working lighthouse. Traipsing past native plants and well-tended lawn, our group moved to the star of the show—the Jupiter Lighthouse.

The lighthouse was designed by Lt. George G. Meade and supplemented by the addition of double walls, porthole windows and extra height courtesy of Lt. William Raynolds.  If Meade sounds familiar to history buffs, that’s because Lt. Meade later became General Meade who served in the army of the North in the Civil War. In an odd twist, The Loxahatchee River Historical Society believes a surveyor by the name of Robert E. Lee was one of the team of six surveyors who decided Jupiter Inlet would be a good spot. It’s that Robert E. Lee who later became the General of the Confederate Army.  Isn’t it amazing how fate works?

            There are thirty-four steps to get to the base of the lighthouse and another 105 to go up to the top. All I can say is thank heavens there are landings and open windows where the sea breeze pours in—that’s a rough climb! I can’t imagine how the early lighthouse keepers did it several times a day. The view from the top, though, was all I had thought it was.  Having poured over history books and pictures of the area, I could imagine how it must have looked when the lighthouse was brand new. It’s easy to picture where the inlet was originally located and what the area must have looked like before buildings and paved roads popped up like dandelions.

            The climb was worth it, and not only because of the catwalk and incredible views. At the top the original lenses made in France by Fresnel are still installed and shine out every night. During the Civil War, they were removed and hidden to keep them safe and it was June, 1866 when the light once again directed sailors home.

Situated on one of the few hills in Florida, the Jupiter Lighthouse is constructed on an Indian mound. Indians were in and around the Inlet area for thousands of years. As we walked through the grounds, the tour guide pointed out smaller mounds to the south of the walkway. South Florida generally doesn’t have much in the way of hills and it was the Indians who made all of these.

            Aha! My ghosts for October?

Sadly, no.

I hopefully asked Amanda Dixon, our guide, if she had ever seen or heard of any unusual occurrences on the grounds. She said no and added that the Loxahatchee River Historical Society prefers to emphasize the history of the location and lighthouse. But, she added, everything was built over land where Indian settlements existed long before the Lighthouse was built. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, who knows?

So, no ghost story from me this week. But with or without a resident haunt, the Jupiter Lighthouse is worth the price of admission. There are friendly, knowledgeable tour guides, beautiful scenery, an interesting museum and a snack bar where you can buy a Gatorade and soothe your aching legs after your climb while you cool off in the air conditioning.

For more information on hours and prices, go to www.jupiterlighthouse.org or call (561) 747-3830. The Lighthouse is located at 500 Captain Armours Way, Jupiter, Florida. 

If you are “one of those people” and manage to glimpse a ghost, let me know. I’ll write a whole new story.

This story first appeared in the October column of The Florida You Don't Know

in Seabreeze Publications, Inc.  

The incredibly cute animated ghost is from netanimations.net.

Copyright (c) 2012 Ruth Hartman Berge

Never Found Anywhere Better!

Carlin Park's Loggerhead Cafe 2012

     The Loggerhead Café is in a two story building in Carlin Park in Jupiter, Florida. Located at 400 South SR A1A, it’s nothing fancy. An open window in the front so that the bathing suit crowd can order a hot dog to go, a covered patio in the back for those who enjoy the sea air while they dine or have a wet backside from swimming in the nearby ocean, and a simple, but good menu is more than enough for any diner.

     The building has been on that spot as long as I can remember. It looks old to the casual observer, although I believe it was built in the 1960s. If there was any doubt that it actually was older than most, the cement bathrooms outside at either end of the building, floors often covered with sand carried in by bathers in the seat of their suits, would be confirmation. The restrooms have been updated, but they’re still on the rustic side.

     If we weren’t grilling lunch ourselves at one of the picnic pavilions which spread out to the south of the main building like ducks following mama, I’d beg to be allowed to buy a hotdog and a soda at the window.

Sign Posted by Seminole Chapter
of the D.A.R.

     The beach at Carlin Park was one of my family’s favorites because of the lifeguards and the handy potties. Somewhere in my box of pictures is one of me in a swimsuit, sunglasses covering blue eyes, posing knee deep in the moat around a sand castle at age two.

     If one got to the park early enough on a weekend, coolers, towels and beach chairs would pile up on the cement picnic tables to signal possession. In 1970, there were only 3,136 people in residence in Jupiter, but hundreds more came from inland or north from nearby towns North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens to enjoy the beach. Those pavilions provided a nice bit of shade during breaks from running across the steaming sand hot enough to burn bare feet and swimming in the ice cold ocean.

     Loggerhead Café’s building sits on the spot Capt. Charles Carlin ran a lifesaving station from 1885 to 1889. The lifesaving building had to be demolished, but the park still bears his name.

     After a life of adventure in the Navy and around the United States during which he came home to Jupiter several times, Capt. Carlin’s grandson, Carlin White, a Jupiter native, returned to serve as mayor and then to retire here. When I first started writing my column for Seabreeze Publications, Inc., I had the pleasure of being included with other Jupiter authors at an event with Mr. White. I didn’t want to bother him with all of the questions swirling around my brain as it was late in the evening and I was tired by then. I reasoned that since he had recently celebrated his 104^th birthday, he might be a little tired, too. I regretted that I had not fought my way through the crowd around him earlier.

     After all of the authors at the event posed for a picture, me standing behind Mr. White, I stood at my table behind his chair and watched as another Jupiter resident grilled him about life in Jupiter way back when. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but I distinctly remember Mr. Carlin’s response to the last question. Asked, "Why did you keep coming back to Jupiter?" He answered incredulously, "Why...because I never found anywhere better!"

     How about you? Was your hometown THE BEST place to live? Or have you moved and found a new favorite?